Aboulia
by Await The Morrow
Summary: Sasukes mental state has taken a turn. Neither Naruto nor Sasuke know how to deal with it. A snapshot of Sasuke in everday hospital life.  Leptos/Orexis universe.


I can do better than this.

My hands clutch the crisp, white hospital sheet, drawing it to my chin and covering every square inch of bare skin below my neck. The material is thin and coarse, standard hospital quality, doing little to provide the warmth I'm seeking. I began to rub my sock-covered feet together from under the covers. The friction created helped a little – God, it was so cold in here. At home the thermostat is always set to twenty-two degrees Celsius, but I often sneak it up to twenty-four or twenty-five when Itachi isn't home to complain. In here the shiny linoleum floor and the dull-coloured walls seem to attract and radiate any chill.

I'm trying to distract myself. From the cold, from the sharp animal-like claws tearing up my stomach wall, demanding me to nourish it. There is another standard blue blanket folded at the end of the bed and a remote to the small television on my bedside table. But these might as well be ten feet away from me. With nothing to animate my limbs this was an impossible distance to cross. I've forgotten how to move.

I hold my jaw painfully still, trying to stop my teeth from their involuntary chattering. It doesn't really work; instead it causes my teeth to grate against each other and my jaw muscles to hurt with the unnatural tautness. It's still too cold in here. Instead of requesting that thermostat be raised I am determined to bear it - so I continue to rub my feet together, placing my hands on my ankles and placing my head onto my bent knees. This curled up position helps ease some of the pain in my stomach, so I conclude that decreasing my surface area was the best plan I'd had this morning.

Funny, decreasing my body's surface area - Isn't that what got me locked up in this room in the first place?

I decide quietly to myself, that with the television remote and any reading material so far away, tapping my fingers on my feet is by far the most interesting thing to do. That is until Saturday Nurse comes in and brings in lunch, that's always eventful. I can hear her in the hallway, the heels on her work-shoes tapping on the blue linoleum, stopping to enter each room in the ward. She has just entered the room next door and already I can hear my neighbor crying.

_I don't want to eat it_, she sobs. Through walls I can hear the nurse sigh, impatient, as if she's not getting paid enough to put up with this. She probably isn't.

The sobs quickly escalate to ear-piercing screams and I am painfully reminded of the pre-requisite level of crazy required for the ED ward. Because I mean, how hard is it to eat a five-hundred calorie meal? Downright impossible. Various curse words and insults bounce off the walls. _What's wrong with you? Why don't you understand?_ The crazy anorexic girl asks, screams, shrieks. She does this every day. _I'm not eating it, _she finishes with tearful indignation. I know what's coming next.

"I'm going to have to let your doctor know you need to be put on the drip then", I whisper under my breath, through my chattering teeth.

_I'm going to have to let your doctor know you need to be put on the drip then, _Saturday Nurse says. The crying flares up again, _No no no!_ the girl yells, producing gut-wrenching sobs for a few moments before it settles into sniffles. After a while she eats it, but continues to sniffle and sob even after the nurse leaves - because besides having had five hundred calories undo everything, which is as devastating as a death sentence - she knows another slice of her dignity has been taken away from her.

I should probably feel bad for her - I know exactly how she feels – yet I can't bring myself to feel anything other than irritation when she starts wailing. Stop letting them know how crazy you are, I think, you're going nowhere fast.

A shiver runs through my body and I wish I had the energy to get the blanket from the foot at the bed, but I don't. It sits there and I stare. The sound of heels has stopped at my door. The sound of my heart starts in my ears.

She comes in with her cart and her smile and wishes me a good morning. Is it still morning? What time is it? I ignore her and stare at a black spot on the blue floor, glancing briefly at my wristwatch. Ah. She asks how I am this morning and I don't answer, afraid my chattering teeth will give away just how pitiable I am quite this early in the day. It doesn't matter because another shiver ripples down my spine before I can stop it.

"Are you cold, Sasuke?" she asks.

"…No."

She clicks her tongue then sighs that _here-we-go_ sigh. She abandons her cart unfolds and then spreads out the blue blanket over my body anyway, smoothing it over my bent knees and tucking it in at the sides of the mattress. "How's that?"

"…"

She smiles as if her warm expression is going to make this any less painful and brings the cart closer. "You poor thing, you're shaking like a leaf. I'll bring you another once you've finished lunch." Just great. Saturday Nurse sits down on the chair beside my bed and takes my tray of food off her cart, placing it on my bedside stand and wheels it closer towards me.

I make no move to properly sit, instead letting my gaze wander to the odorless meal that's on the tray and hating it, feeling humiliated. If it wasn't such a warped situation I would be amused that they were trying to tempt food-phobic's with slop. Today they've brought me a lentil burger, steamed vegetables and a high calorie protein shake. Despite the unappealing quality my mouth waters and my stomach walls clench with an odd hope, every cell in my body is ready to be animated and fed, they buzz with excitement. The body is convinced, _eat it_ it says. The final frontier, the last man that needs to be convinced, is my mind, who drives a hard bargain. I didn't prepare the food; I could not properly estimate how many calories are in the meal._500, 600, 700, 1000?_

No.

It can't be done.

I can't let that in my body. I just can't let it happen, I've worked too hard. I could envision myself eating the meal, the calories clinging to my bones, turning into fat. If I ate it everything would be undone - my thighs would start to touch, my stomach would protrude out, the fat would come back. This one meal would revert me back and I would hate myself even more. I know how much trouble this will cause but no, it's impossible. The nurse is staring at me, expectantly, as if to say _what are you waiting for, you've been here for a few weeks, you know the routine_. No. She's tapping her fingers lightly on the armrest, waiting for me to start. No.

Suddenly the same panic I heard in my neighbors wail has entered my blood and I quickly sit up, pressing my back against the pillows and avert my eyes to the stitching in the blue blanket. But I'm okay – the nurse just needs to understand. My head starts to throb and I go dizzy from moving so fast. My heart begins to thud thud thud as the rooms' walls start closing in on me, the room gets smaller. Inhale.

"Do I need to feed you, Sasuke?"

"No," I snap, exhale, managing to feel stupid again. My fingers knot themselves around the bed sheet, untie themselves, and then get themselves tangled again.

"_God, Sasuke…you are sick – you are so, so sick…"_

"…Are you going to start eating for me then?"

I choose not to answer and look out at the window instead, hoping that she would get the hint. _No, I won't._ I pretend to find something interesting in the dull grey clouds covering the sky. I am in control of the situation – she'll understand. She has to.

"_Why are you doing this? Hmmm? Why? Why the hell would you do this to yourself? What is wrong with you?"_

From the corner of my eye I can see her pinching the bridge of her nose and huffing out her chest, trying to school her emotions. She's probably had this reaction from every single one of her patients today. If she wasn't the devil's advocate I might have been sympathetic. Might have. Wasn't.

"Not today, Sasuke, please…"

"_Please, Sasuke, not today. Just sit down and eat, alright? Stop making this hard."_

My teeth chatter still as I turn my eyes to her, hardening my expression. I want to snap at her, tell her to go fuck herself because she clearly doesn't understand what this is like and if she had any idea she wouldn't dare do this.

I steel my stare and gear up a scathing remark but before I can spit any venom there is a knock on the open door.

We both look up as a flash of blond and then Naruto's unassuming expression peeks through the door, followed by the rest of his body as he invites himself into the room. In one hand he carries one of those environmentally friendly bags you buy from the supermarket and waves jovially to Nurse and I with the other. The welcoming smile he prepared slowly morphs into a sheepish grin as he realizes I'm not alone.

"Am I interrupting? Do you want me to come back?" he asks, aiming his question towards the nurse, because I must be incapable of giving logical and coherent responses.

"Not at all," the nurse smiles, beckoning Naruto closer with her hand. "We were just about to start lunch, right Sasuke?"

I don't answer, instead I turn my head slowly and look at her without pity. She probably thinks this is a brilliant opportunity. If she thinks I'm going to make her job easier for her because I have a visitor than the woman has another thing coming.

Naruto looks between us nervously, seemingly skeptical that I was willingly partaking in both food _and_ conversation. I'm about to open my mouth and inform them both that she is wasting her time when her beeper goes off around her waist. She grabs it, frowning, upon closer inspection of the message.

"Damn," she says, and stands up, "I need to get going, Sasuke." She bites her lip, torn between her conflicting duties. She needs to leave, but can't until I have eaten, but there appears to have been some emergency. If Naruto hadn't had graced us with his disgraceful presence, this would have been a perfect, perfect opportunity. I grind my teeth.

"Hey, no worries," the blond grins, exuding confidence. "I'll make sure this one has his lunch."

The nurse puts her hand over her heart and thanks him repeatedly, dashes to leave, but not without promising to come back soon to check up on me and my vital signs before she exits the room. I feel like a child who can't be left on his own without an adult to supervise. I'm irritated, truly sick of people speaking to me like I'm not here or like I have the intellectual level of a four year old.

Naruto picks up the plastic fork from the tray and starts poking around my food with a doubtful face. He sniffs the meal and drops the fork.

"So.…how are you?" he asks, attention back to me. I don't bother looking at him but I can see in my peripheral vision that he is wringing his hands in his lap and bouncing a knee up and down. He's nervous. Good, I think to myself. He should be nervous. It's his fault that I'm in here and it's his fault that everyone now knows how insane I am. He is in a world of trouble and I'm glad he knows it - I wish he'd leave. I don't answer.

"…uh, right…" he says awkwardly, choosing to rifle through his enviro bag instead. He pulls out some thick books I instantly recognize as my own, setting them on the bedside table. "I, uh, brought you some stuff from home…" he says, pulling out more items from the bag, "…just clothes and books and stuff…"

Am I supposed to be grateful that he brought me biology textbooks while in prison? I watch him and wonder if he expects a thank you I'm never going to give him. I stare until he looks unnerved.

As if he were the four year old I tell him, "…you can go now."

His head whips up and blue eyes flash. "B-beg your pardon?" he splutters, face contorting into a peculiar shape of anger. Good. Anger, I can deal with.

Either he's deaf or he truly expected a warm welcome, in which case I have to question which one of us is really delusional - what part of his one-sided conversation made him think I want him here? "I want you to leave," I say slowly. I bite the inside of my lip and wait for a reaction, not quite sure what I'm doing and why I can't stop antagonizing. He stands up from his chair, paces briefly, changes his mind about something then sits back down with his jaw tightly clenched. I don't know whether or not he wants to punch me or spit on me. In the back of my mind I can hear myself being ill-mannered and rude but the louder part of my brain screams _you don't owe him anything_. _Make him leave._

"Piss off," he finally snorts, "I just got here – and what's your problem anyway?" he cuts me off as I open my mouth.

I grip the blanket and sneer. "_You_ are my problem."

Despite my blatant animosity he seems completely (infuriatingly) unfazed and grabs a magazine that he had brought me, resting his feet on the end of my bed. All the anger from moments ago is dissipated and he looks calm, nonchalant, like I'd never said anything. My blood begins to simmer.

"Well, have I got news for you. So Ino finally asked Shikamaru out - he completely shot her down though. Most hilarious thing ever, _so_ wish you'd seen it."

"….."

"Oh oh and Neji was outed. Also hilarious"

"Really don't care."

"Oh, uhhh, Jiraiya is seeing someone. He says she a masseuse, but I think that's code for hooker."

"…."

"Uhhh…okay….ahhh hmmm….oh yesterday Gaara got nearly got into a punch-on with some prick in the year above us who called him a ranga, swear to God he would have beaten him to death if we hadn't stepped in…like, he's my best mate and all but he seriously needs anger management…."

His babbling slowly weaved into a finely tuned white noise with my attention-span falling out of his fingers. A small, brown bird lands on the window sill and it bob up and down, up and down, pecking at whatever it must find tasty on the window sill. God, I'm hungry. I chance a cautious glance at the slowly cooling meal sitting mere inches away from me. Half of me wants to grab the tray and devour, _inhale_ every morsel on the plate. The other half wants to throw it out the window to the birds to rid all temptation.

I had no self-control like that. I wasn't disciplined enough to simply ignore a source of enticement, I would have to physically remove or spoil food to ensure it never passed my lips. Sometimes I would simply throw away the food, whatever it was, into the garden or I would "accidently" add water to my cereal or anything that was unappealing to my sense of taste. Sometimes my body would completely override my mind and binge and half an hour later I would have my head above a toilet bowel and my fingers down my throat.

Which is probably why it makes me so angry when everyone tries to force these things on me. When they smile and say, _devour this meal which is probably over 700 calories, it's so easy. _No, it's not- not when your mind demands you only have 300-500 calories, depending on the day. Then they get so angry with you when you refuse, when you say _sorry, I had a big lunch_, _or sorry I'm not feeling so well_. They think you enjoy this. That you are so happy to not eat, to constantly refuse temptation, that you are delighted to restrict yourself to three hundred calories a day. It doesn't make me happy or delighted or even satisfied. It makes me miserable but I have to do it. There's a voice, giving marching orders in my head, demanding perfection, weight loss and control. It sets the ever-changing, ever restricting rules and regulations. If I disobey it gets louder and more aggressive but with control it quiets down. Sometimes I want to tell it to shut the hell up and leave me alone but I know, somehow, I would be lost without it. Fat and out of control.

While seeing my weight drop on the scale gives me a satisfaction I think of how I got there. I think and I remember the countless times where I have tears streaming down my face, burst blood vessels around my eyes and my teeth aching from acid wear. I think of how my stomach hurts with one more sit up and of how my head pounds like a drum after purging. I think of walking down the aisles of the supermarket with Itachi and literally having to shield my eyes from the rows of food on either side of me, terrified of tempation. I think of how watching television becomes an ordeal with the advertisements, the cooking shows, and the nuclear families sitting around the dinner table. I think of how I'm in the bathroom and panicking because I am literally choking on my own vomit and can't breathe and my mind just tells me _keep on going, bring it all up._

No.

"Sasuke?"

I turn sharply to Naruto, forgetting he was there. The bird from the window sill flutters away, satisfied.

"What?"

"Did you hear me? I said we should get started on lunch."

The marching band in my heart picks up speed and the hospital walls get closer. "Right…" Act normal. Why aren't I normal? My hands move on their own, bringing the tray to my lap and I can feel the hot plate through my blanket and the burn of blue eyes on my movements. The fork I pick up is white and plastic and when I stare down at my meal I don't quite remember how to use it. I see the broccoli, the carrots, the lentil burger and the side of salad in which I can smell the French dressing. I decide that the steamed vegetables are safe. Maybe. What if I can't stop once I start? What if I _don't_ stop? Just don't start!

Naruto ruffles through one of his enviro-bags, pulling out a cling-wrapped sandwich looked to have been bought from the cafeteria on the ground floor of the hospital. He's making a moment out of this. He's doing this so he can tell people back at home _Oh yes I saw Sasuke on the weekend, we had lunch together_. I wish he'd leave.

"I want you to leave," I tell him again. He raises an eyebrow at me, muttering an _I know_ through a mouthful of ham sandwich and chewing a silent _I don't care_. He doesn't move from his seat and neither does his watch on my actions. I don't know what else to do but to stare at my food instead, anxiety canoeing in my brain. I need to get it away from me. Before I know what I've done I've delicately placed the fork back where it came from and the tray back onto the bedside table. My heart beats a little faster.

"Sasuke…"

Thud, thud. Same old excuse. "I'm not hungry."

He rubs his eyes with the palm of his hands, sighing noisily through his teeth like this is so hard for him. "And I'm not stupid. Seriously, Sasuke? Seriously?"

"_When is this nonsense going to stop?"_

"Seriously what? What do you want?"

"Nothing," he mutters quietly as he stands up, hope flares hotly in my chest, thinking he's going to leave, that I've won. Instead he just begins pacing around the room, biting his fingernails. "Like, what the fuck actually happened to you? Why are you doing this?"

I sit up straighter. "Doing what? Quit pussy-footing around what you're trying to say. Spit it out."

He stops dead from his movements and throws his hands in my direction, eyes wide and incredulous. His eyes rake over my body and before I can stop him he's walked over and is shaking my shoulders. "This!" he gestures at me, and he flushes in barely contained anger. "This! This stupid starving yourself, insane thing you're doing. This is such _shit_, Sasuke."

Why is he so angry? What right does he think he has to say these things to me? Fires of anger animate my frozen body, I shake him off and throw the blankets off me, standing up to meet him eye to eye. I don't notice the chill without the warm of the cotton blanket as I clench my teeth and my fists. "Who do you think you _are_?" I spit with any acid I have left, "What right do you think you have coming in here telling me what I should be doing?"

The other takes in a deep breath, trying to calm himself through the heat of the hostility, trying to lull the electricity in his veins begging him to lash out. "Christ. Fucking just…..like, I just want to understand what the hell makes you want to do this. I don't get it."

For a second or two I can't breathe. Want? _Want?_ I don't _want _to do this at all. I don't want to only care about numbers and figures. I don't want to ruin my body beyond repair. I don't want to see the anger and disappointment in my brother's face when I can't do something as simple as eat a homemade meal. I don't want to hate myself. I don't want to have a voice in my head. I don't want to keep doing this to myself with the knowledge that no matter what I do it's never good enough. I don't want to wake up every morning with achy-bones and torn muscles and know I can never rest. I don't want to be teenage male with an eating disorder.

But I need it. It is the anchor in the sea-storm that has been my life. It is the one constant keeping me in control and although it is killing me I can't let it go – without it there's nothing, just chaos.

"Fuck you," I tell him, gesturing to the room around me, "this is far from what I _want_."

"Yeah? What – what the bloody hell is it then, huh?"

The walls are closing in too quickly and the ceiling is lowering until I am cornered and suffocating, the drums get louder and louder. "Go."

"Fine," he growls, moving closer to me, stopping inches away from my body. "I'll leave. When you finish that," he gestures to the tray of now cold lunch.

I look at where he is aiming, pinpointing the cooling tray of food and suddenly I feel very lucid and calm. The heat has cleared from my head and the anxiety has swum away, dispersing into my blood and saving itself for another day. All I can hear is my heart beating in my ears.

"This?" I ask, moving towards the table. "_This?_" I ask again and before Naruto can answer I've taken the tray and flipped all of its contents on the floor. Food flies in all directions, on the wall, lentil smearing all over the floor, carefully cut circles of carrot flying over the bed like discus. In one swift motion it's gone. The food, the temptation, the fear is gone. It's over. Relax. Breathe. I take this moment of internal quiet to look over at the other.

Naruto has his hands over his eyes, over his face, fingertips pressing into his corneas. He's quiet for a moment then starts to say something, stops and lets out a long breath. His eyes roam the white expansive ceiling and he tries again, squaring his shoulders. "Who _are_ you?" he asks finally, voice shaky. "I don't even know who _you_ are anymore." He's thrown up his hands in the air in calm surrender, he's given up. He's bowing out silently. I don't know if I'm relieved or if I'm bothered. I feel like I've come out on top of some twisted game where I'm both the winner and the loser.

I don't k now what to say or do, so I sit back on the bed and look away, tuning out everything. I wait for something or nothing to happen, but neither does.

The white noise starts again and for a long time all I hear is the dull buzz filling my head. My heart slows down, the adrenaline subsides and I'm overcome with a sense of resignation. The least ten minutes plays over in my mind and I feel sick with shame.

I am sick – I am so, so sick.

I don't know when Naruto left or when the Nurse came in and saw the mess or even when The Doctor came in to tell me it was time for the drip. I remember the satisfaction and relief sweep through my veins, putting out the fire of anger and fear that Naruto and food had brought. I remember that he left the books and clothes and stuff on the floor in the enviro bag, I don't know if he'll ever bother coming back or if he gave a report to Itachi that gave me a big red 'F' for sanity. The next time I'm seen by family and friends I have a nasogastric tube feeding me liquid calories through my nostril.

I don't remember lying down and falling asleep but I remember waking up to the nurse hooking up the drip to my body that wont respond. I remember she tried to keep a straight face while she tells me with tears in her voice not to struggle because one of the girls in the ward who was in her twenties had just died from heart failure. Then I don't feel anything. No fear, no anger, no sadness. Just the white noise and the sobs of the girl next door as another Nurse brings in her dinner.


End file.
